15
My father sat on the throne. He shifted uncomfortably from side to side.
“I never realized being King would be so uncomfortable. This chair is as hard as a rock.”
I ran my hand over the carved wood. “It is. The chairs in our old house were much better. A shame they smashed them all to bits.”
My father grinned. “That’s nothing. Our private fortune is far larger than the royal treasury. I’ll have a new throne forged from solid gold.”
‘And this whole palace needs a renovation,” he added. “It’s far too drab.”
We were busy making plans until the evening banquet.
“I can’t believe how smoothly everything went,” I marveled.
My mother laughed heartily. “It’s all thanks to you knowing the plot. When you were a baby, we could hear your thoughts. It scared us half to dea-
- th. Your brother stopped playing with his friends entirely and spent all his time training and reading.”
Damian scratched his head, blushing. “Listening to you was terrifying. It gave me serious childhood trauma.”
My face burned. I whispered, “You could all hear my inner thoughts?”
They answered in unison, “Of course.”
“We knew every time you skipped your lessons, every time you got into a fight with another noble girl, and every time you silently called someone
out for being a treacherous snake.”
But your father has a soft spot for you, my mother added. “He always looked the other way.”
I wanted the floor to swallow me whole.
It was mortifying.
“So,” my father concluded, “we knew none of us had a good ending. We started planning years ago. We knew we needed our own power. I saved a
lot of money. I wasn’t about to let those idiots get their hands on it.”
My mother nodded. “Exactly. Why should our lives be in someone else’s hands? When it’s a choice between us dying or them dying, the choice is
very simple.
by, we choice is
So, it turned out that because of me, my family had been on the path of true villainy from the very beginning. And there was no turning back.
krista
Trista was thrown in prison. After a lifetime of curating a flawless reputation, not a single person came to visit her.
But in the end, she hadn’t committed any real crimes. After a few days, she was released.
She became a commoner. Her poetry, her grace, her noble sensibilities–all useless now. She had to roll up her sleeves and learn how to make tofu from the old woman down the street.
I saw her once, years later, when I was visiting the city. She had married a simple man and was no longer the ethereal muse of Aethelgard. Inste- ad, she was hawking her tofu in the market square, living a plain but prosperous life.”
The Prince tried to incite a rebellion, but with no money, no influence, and a terrible personality, no one would help him. He was beheaded that
autumn.
The common people didn’t care who sat on the throne. They only cared if their bellies were full and if there was peace in the land.
Ten years later, the soup given out at the royal charity kitchens no longer had sand in it.
Extra:
I was a transmigrator from birth. The moment I arrived, I was greeted by my new, enthusiastic family.
“Father! Mother! It’s a girl!”
A
I blinked my eyes open to a world of gold and glittering jewels.
الله الا الله الله الله
But before the wealth could blind me, I recognized them. My new family were all the major villains from the book I’d just finished reading.
“Damian, don’t you dare hold your sister like that. You’ll drop her.”
I couldn’t speak yet, only gurgle.
Damian thought I was reaching for him and swooped me into his arms.
The bloodthirsty, tyrannical general from the book was acting like an overeager puppy. “Let me hold her! Just for a second!”
[Ugh, this moron is my–brother?]
Damian’s arms went stiff.
My father took me from him. “See? I knew you couldn’t be trusted. You’re too clumsy.”
This father was incredibly handsome. But his ending was so tragic.
Oh, how I wished I could speak. [This is the great traitor, Father! The super–villain Dad!]
As he held me, my father’s hands trembled slightly. He rubbed his ear. Had he just heard a tiny, milky voice?
